An old soul finding her place in life through honesty, humor and photography.

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Warning: This is a ridiculous lady rant about shoes. You’ve been warned. Paragraphs may imply awkwardness and whiney personality. It does not have “Whitney” writing as my spellcheck insists on telling you.

I spent almost four hours dodging fellow shoppers and navigating two shopping malls, traffic and a random shopping center after work tonight. Countless department stores, shoe stores, teen, sophisticated, hipster, skater, sport and anything-apparel type stores later, I found a decent pair of shoes. I didn’t have crazy criteria; somewhat stylish, comfortable, flat and with an ankle strap. I prefer non-man made material and I didn’t want to wear something resembling my grandmas cruise apparel from the early 90’s.

I learned a couple things tonight:

– All athletic shoe stores carry exactly the same brands, styles and colors. If you’ve been in one, you’ve seen them all.

– All retail employees ask how you are but they don’t listen to your reply. I learned you could respond with an array of ridiculous answers and they will still say, “great, if you need anything, let me know.” Well, salesperson, I can tell you right now that you are not the kind of person I can rely on, considering you think that my dog dying is great. (My dog didn’t die, but it still would not be great.)

– Old people know how to take care of their feet. Is it wisdom or refusal to cram their feet into awkward confining foot-shackles any longer? Either way, they have quite a selection to choose from. My younger feet even seemed old when I tried a couple on. Eek, glimpse into the future?

– Young people will pay for a flat piece of plastic, covered in cheep vinyl, with a piece of fibrous rope glued to it and be happy about it. My heels cringed thinking about wearing them for more than ten paces. And that’s coming from a kid who wore “jellies” in the 80’s.

– Lastly, I’m old. I’m not even 30 but as I shopped, I found myself in an undefined category. I saw professionals in gorgeous and costly shoes, twenty year olds with canvas wrapped loosely on their feet and old people with cushy leather clod-hoppers that have bulbous soles and unflattering bulky shapes.

I’m going on a trip where I will do a lot of walking, out of dozens of stores, I found one, just one part of sandals that were well made, comfortable and not from grandma’s or little cousin’s closet. Do I ask for too much? Is it too much to try to avoid blisters and pain but still care about appearance; is it too often one way or another? Such a silly argument, I know, but there I was thinking that I couldn’t be the only one that didn’t want to limp this summer with irritated and abused tootsies.

If only I could make Hush Puppies trendy for my generation. If you had a grandma who dressed up, you will know what I’m talking about.

Trust me…they do look cute on, I just don’t feel like being a foot model tonight.

But, Tuesday hasn’t technically started for me, even though its 3:00am, so I can write now and it will still count for yesterday. It’s still Monday night, right? I mean, I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I had plans to write.

Then I starting thinking how late I’ll be if I woke up now and became functional, only to go back to sleep for two hours until my work alarm goes off. So I got up, turned the TV off, lights off and hit the shower. Better to get ahead of the game, plus I do some of my best thinking in the shower; except that I usually get on a mental “roll” in there and forget what I was going to write by the time I’m done. I started thinking that I should keep a recorder outside of the tub in case I have any ideas that are earth shattering. Then, because it’s 3am, I came up with a silly line about I can make a joke about those plastic flute-like recorders 4th graders get, and how that wouldn’t help my blog writing. Sure glad I didn’t use that one. Whew.

But really, I’m sure I’m not alone in the incessant excuse making. I don’t think I use them when it comes to others, pretty much just for myself. I’m a selfish excuse maker. Here are some of the best I’ve come up with in the last week.

I’m not going to the gym. Those people who never go and make a New Year’s resolution go and it gets too crowded.

I’ve gained a few pounds. It’s probably because I’m stressed at work or my metabolism is starting to slow down at 28. It can’t be because I’ve been on a cookie diet since Christmas.

(To my husband) Yes, I saw the apples went bad. Why didn’t YOU eat them? I didn’t eat them because I didn’t want leave you without any. (Ok, so maybe I’m not so selfish with myexcuses after all.)

I had to buy those boots, because they sent me a $10 coupon and then there was another sale ad for 20% off. It would be like wasting money if I didn’t use them.

I know we just bought the Girl Scout cookies, but if we don’t eat them it’ll be like the tragedy of 2011, when we forgot about a box of shortbreads on top of the fridge and they got stale. (Reference second excuse here)

At least I’m not murdering people or doing harm to others with my excuses. They are really harmless. Oh man, I just tried to validate my excuses.